The State Epidemiological
Outcomes Workgroup Online Data System was developed by Bach Harrison, LLC and is
brought to you by the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services
(ODMHSAS), and was funded through the Strategic Prevention Framework State Incentive
Grant (SPF-SIG). The component of the SPF-SIG project responsible for data collection
and analysis is the State Epidemiological Outcomes Workgroup (SEOW). The SEOW was
formed in 2006, and tasked with identifying and evaluating the substance abuse prevention
related data that exists in the state, and developing a database that would assist
professionals in the substance abuse prevention and other related fields. This website
was developed with the guidance of the SEOW and the data presented through this
website were collected as part of the SEOW dataset.

The indicators collected
by the SEOW represent the most comprehensive compilation of data related to the
consumption and consequence of substance use and abuse in Oklahoma. These data were
first presented and summarized in a formal report (“2008 Oklahoma Epidemiological
Profile: Consumption and Consequences of Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drugs”) in 2008.
To download or view of copy of the latest state epidemiology profile report, please
visit the ODMHSAS website:
http://www.ok.gov/odmhsas/documents/2010 Oklahoma Epidemiological Profile.pdf.

The online
database tool is intended to complement the written state epidemiology profile report.
While the state profile report provides an excellent overview of the data housed
within the SEOW dataset and provides useful presentations of state level data (including
comparisons between state and national data), space limitations constrained the
report’s ability to provide sub-state level data. Because one of the primary goals
for the SEOW has been to provide data that informs prevention planning at the community
level, an extensive effort has been made to obtain as much data as possible that
can be disaggregated at sub-state levels (primarily county and regional levels).
To this aim, the website enhances the ability of substance abuse prevention professionals
to access the SEOW data at the community level by providing simple analysis tools,
and allowing users to download raw data that can be analyzed further as needed.
For community level prevention professionals, the website offers several advantages
over the written epidemiological profile reports because it allows users to generate
customizable queries of indicators by county, and mapping options of several years
of data (rather than a single year as provided in the profile reports). Additionally,
users can examine trends within certain demographic variables such as gender, grade
and age when these data are available.

About the Data

The data housed within
the SEOW dataset were collected from a variety of sources both nationally and within
the state of Oklahoma. The data are presented (and available for download) through
the website as they were provided to the SEOW by the source agency. For a complete
list and descriptions of data sources contributing to the SEOW dataset, please see
the data sources tab of this website.

While the state epidemiology
profile reports provide excellent overviews of the SEOW data at the state level,
including comparisons between state and national trends, the online data system
is focused on providing community (sub-state) level data that will allow prevention
professionals at the community level to examine data relevant to the communities
they serve. By default, charts and map presentations of the data from the online
system focus on county, region, and state data (rather than national data), and
allow comparisons between these three levels of geography. With that being said,
some data sources the SEOW felt were important for inclusion in the data system
are only available at state and national levels. For these indicators, the system
presents state and national data rather than county and regional data.

Every effort was
made to include the most recent data possible for each indicator. However, typically
most data sets do not have data for the current or previous year. There are a variety
of reasons for the lag in data availability. However, the primary reason for this
lag is that most data sources have one to three year delays in making their data
available to the public.

Additionally, for
many indicators the source agencies would not allow small numbers of events or cases
associated with a particular level of geography (e.g., less than five cases per
county) to be released for public use. These restrictions regarding data release
are intended to protect the anonymity of those who are counted as part of the statistics
for those indicators. As a result, queries of some indicators may result in some
counties or regions having missing values that actually reflects that a low number
of events occurred in that geography (e.g., less than five cases) for the specified
time period. Typically, this occurs for indicators which are low frequency events
(e.g., suicide, homicide, etc.), and/or in areas where populations are small (i.e.,
resulting in lower numbers of events). In order to minimize the number of data points
that were unable to be released due to small numbers, the SEOW queried different
indicators with different time periods as necessary. For lower frequency event indicators,
years were aggregated to maximize the likelihood that publishable numbers would
be available for as many counties and regions as possible. The lower frequency the
indicator, the greater numbers of years of aggregation are necessary. Therefore,
presentations of indicators through the online database system will vary in the
timeframes that they are published. For example, higher frequency events such as
property and violent crimes allow publication of single year data at county level,
whereas relatively lower frequency indicators such as cardiovascular disease deaths
allow publication of 3-year aggregated data, and very low frequency indicators such
as suicides only allow publication of 10-year aggregated data at county level. In
order to balance the desire to have trend data for as many time periods as possible,
with the publication limitations of low frequency indicators, the timeframes covered
may differ within the same indicator for county level data and region level data
(region level data is more likely to allow publication for smaller timeframes).

About Rate
Calculations

The Oklahoma Data
Query System presents pre-calculated rates (or percentage use estimates) for each
indicator as a default presentation. By presenting rates and percentages, the system
makes it easy to compare counties and regions to one another. However, for users
who are also interested in examining data regarding the raw counts (numbers of events)
associated with the consequence indicators housed in the online data system, these
data are available through a link that is located above the upper right corner of
any chart where numbers are available. By clicking on the “show numbers” link, the
system will draw a new chart that presents the number of events associated with
that indicator rather than the rates. To view rates again, simply click on the “show
rates” link that appears in the same location. Please note, that numbers are not
available for all indicators. If you do not see the “show numbers” link above the
chart for a particular indicator, numbers data are not applicable to that indicator.
Typically, numbers data will only be available for consequence indicators.

Most of the rates
presented through the SEOW online data system were calculated using population projections
(estimates) developed by the United States Census Bureau (for more detailed information
please see the data sources tab on this site). The Census Bureau population projections
used for rate calculations are available for viewing or downloading through the
online data system. These data are included in the list of indicators under the
label “Census Projections.” For some indicators, pre-calculated rates were available
from the source agency that may use different population estimates than the ones
used by the SEOW. Rates for these indicators were not re-calculated. Please note
that the Census Bureau population estimates are updated each year, and as a result,
the projections found in this website may differ slightly from the projections found
on the Census Bureau website.